Hi. First of all, sorry if this is not the proper subforum to post this. Please let me know (or move it straight) if I'm in the wrong place...

I am starting my Tau force and, while I am aware that the optimal choice for Crisis Suit models is to magnetize them, I feel like I don't have the modelling finesse to pull it. I did but I hate that the weapons somewhat "spin" on the spot. I couldn't take it and I glued my first three models since I figured that the configuration was more or less what I wanted on my first 3 suits for diverse games. My playgroup is not so diverse so 2x double plasma and 1x double fusion is a sure bet for almost any game.

Recently I got my second "Start Collecting" box and so I have to put together three more of these guys. My gut feeling is that probably I should give the magnets a chance, but until then I wonder what weapons are more adequate for the next group in order to have a 5-6 minis group I could use in most games.

I was thinking on something like this, but I feel like I'm in need of more expert comments before I grab the cyanocrilate:· 2 or 3x double plasma· 1 or 2x double fusion for suicide runs against enemy armor· 2 or 3x double Missile Pods because... I don't know, 4 S7 AP4 shots seems something useful against Gladius and similar AV11 or 10 spam. Also according to the almighty mathhammer they are actually my best choice against my wife's TWC unit (they have a lot of storm shields so the AP is more or less irrelevant)

What do you think? I know that the best choice is to man up and magnetize them, but I think i'd rather do that when im on the 9th or 12th suit and I have stablished a more or less standard core. Any concrete loadouts proportion for my first 6?

Regards

PS: I have been told that it's stupid to do so but I kinda like the idea of giving the plasma guys some shields. I know it shoots the cost by almost 50%, but since they are going to have to be close to MEQ guys to do their job, I guessed they could as well try to absorb some retaliation fire. Is that completely stupid? I guess I'm too used to my main 1k Sons army and their ubiquitous 4++

When it comes to crisis suits the best theory is to pick a role for the suits and equip them accordingly.

Missile Pod suits have decent firepower, but their defining trait is range. With Thrust moves and a 36 inch shot, you can keep them safely behind cover most of the game, popping out to take your shots before returning to safety.

The Fusion Blasters and Plasma Rifles are really short range weapons (their best work happening within 9 and 12 inches respectively). You almost need to deep strike them to be effective and be willing to accept the losses that come with it. Plasma suits are also good as an assault denial unit. Supporting fire plus markerlights allow a well positioned plasma rifle team to devastate any charging unit without storm shields.

Burst Cannons, Airbursting Fragmentation Projectors and Cyclic Ion Blasters are our mid-range weapons. All of them are great against massed infantry. The Burst Cannon also does a number on light vehicles and the Cyclic Ion Blaster is threatening to even medium armoured vehicles and low end monstrous creatures. You need to play these suits aggressively, but they can keep a little distance between them and the enemy.

Finally the flamer is primarily a defensive weapon, piling automatic hits on anyone having your suit. It's a decent add on to a fusion or plasma suit as it's cheap and gives them the ability to do real damage to the things fusion blasters and plasma rifles just aren't good at so these suits don't suffer from a lack of targets.

Once you've decided what you want your suit to be able to kill, next up is the wargear.

Shield Generators and Stim Injectors. These are great for increasing the survivability of suits. However, with the exception of a commander, you probably don't need to boost your suits survivability if it comes at the expense of firepower.

Early Warning Override, Velocity Trackers, and Advanced Targeting Systems all are firepower boosting systems and each is best suited for specific circumstances. EWO and Velocity Trackers make great use of the range bubble of the Missile Pod. EWO plus Plasma Rifles is great for destroying deep striking units. ATS is great for allowing high rate of fire Burst Canons and CIBs to shoot around a tanking character or a Fusion Blaster for sniping muli-wound models hiding in a durable unit.

Drone Controllers and Target Locks I am mentioning together because they are rarely used outside of a special com inayion. By creating a unit with a large number of missile pods and target lock suits, plus a suit with a drone controller and giving every suit a pair of marker drones you create a highly mobile unit that can mark one enemy unit while shooting another. If the model with the drone controller is a comander, those marker drones are BS 5!

Positional Relay is an interesting choice. On paper, brining a unit in on the table edge of your choice is a great ability. But there are a few problems. First is the relay has to be on the tabletop before the outflanking unit comes in. As the Tau have problems manipulating reserves, this means you want the unit with the Positional Relay on the table starting turn 1.

The other issue with the Positional Relay is you are stuck within 6 inches of the board edge until the outflanking unit arrives. As only one crisis suits weapon isn't crippled by staying so far from the action (the missile pod) this somewhat limits your options in choosing unit load out.

Finally, once the unit is starting on the board and is going to be withing 6 inches of a board edge for most of the game, it is really easy for an opponent to block you from getting them Positional Relay to the back table edge, where it is at its most powerful.

Instead of give the Positional Relay to some infiltrating stealth suits.

Last, and far from least, is the Vectored Retro-Thrusters. I like them for 2 reasons. First, they improve the mobility of your suits by giving them the fleet rule. Second, the nightmare of any Tau commander is to have a unit tied up in an assault for multiple turns. Not only does it keep your unit from shooting, but it keeps the rest of your army from shooting the enemy unit. The Hit and Run rule gives you an out.

Well Crisis suits in many armies fill the void of missing elements of your army. Gone to heavy on anti tank, then go for anti infantry weapons. Not enough anti 3+/2+ anti infantry, go for the plasma etc etc.

If you on the other hand play a Farsight army, and focusing on Crisis, then you need to fill the roles for each element you might face. In general:

The list can be made more complex of course. But filling out those categories usually works for me. Now each weapon can of course have a dual purpose. In my case, I don't use missile pods. This because I personally use a very aggressive play style. Cyclic ion blasters suits my needs better, more shots and access to blasts versus hordes.

I also include one units of three crisis each with dual plasma rifles and counter fire defence system, and two crisis plus commander with dual fusion blasters and counter fire defence system. Commander decked out with additional items as he can take more. These two units are able to hunt heavy infantry and vehicles. Close range, thus I chose to have counter fire on them. I use these in a Retaliation Cadre, so the are deep striking.

A more defensive setup would be of course missile pods, plasma rifles and suicide fusion crisis for tank hunt (if needed).

I like running a Farsight CAD and a RetCadre so I can field two Monats as troops running 2x Missile pods and Target lock. I give them 2x Marker drones each and park them in my back-field to hold objectives. MLs and Missiles have the same range so the Monats can put out S7 wounds from a safe distance while the markers can target a separate unit for, say, my deep striking fusion/plasma toting Crisis suits that already fire at +1 BS when they come in and re-roll wounds/pens on the priority target I have marked for death with Mont'Ka. Stick a PEN chip on the commander so it can re-roll wounds on something else.

I also run Drone-Net for the unilateral +1 BS, mitigating the need for Drone Controller on the Monats.

I like 2 units of 2x Plasma and 1 unit of 2x Fusion to park the (fusion) commander with the PEN chip in. Occasionally I will add a flamer suit (with Target Lock) to the plasma or and switch the Fusion to Ion, but only if I expect a horde of assault and am not playing an AV14 heavy list.

Also, as I understand it, a homing beacon does NOT have to start its turn on the table to be of use, so the Tetras can outflank from reserves the same turn you bring in your crisis bomb, allowing it a scatter free Deep Strike within six inches of the tetras. Using two units of Tetra so you can (likely) bring at least one in from reserves on turn two allows for multiple simultaneous devastating (possibly even defensive) deep strikes.

Honestly for me there are only 3 weapons on Crisis. Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster and Cyclic Ion Blaster.CIBs are just awesome. They can threaten pretty much everything (although not the most efficient weapon against high AV an 2+ armor obviously) which means if you want a slightly more multipurpose approach you can pair a CIB with either Plasma or Fusion Blaster.If you have spare points make the PR or FB twin linked if you want to rely a bit less on Markerlights with them.Due high firerate and high strength they are still decent against everything you'd want to shoot at with your Plasma Rifle or Fusion Blaster as long as it's not AV13-14.

Why no Missile Pods or Burst Cannons? Well for long range S7 dakka we have Broadsides or Riptides who do that job much better unless you fight on a dense terrain board with no proper line of sight for the Broadsides. And Burst Cannons are pretty lack luster. 18" S5 AP5 is REALLY nothing we are in dire need for as Tau and CIB with its +2 strength +1 AP easily outclasses the -1 shot.

The wild card would be the Flamer I guess. It's incredibly cheap, offers nice Supporting Fire Overwatch capabilities and is a pain in the ass for a lot of armies if you drop 2-3 Monat units with double flamer in their lines just because you can...one costs only 32p anyway. Also one shouldn't underestimate the amount of damage they can do. Sure S4 AP5 is worse than the Burst Cannon and they have less range but they also don't need to roll to hit and ignore Cover. If you are in range you should easily get 4 hits per flamer on a unit off while a Burst Cannon would do only 2 hits on average without Markerlight support.

The Airburst Fragmentation Projector is......as bad as its namechoice. I mean it's not bad bad but it's definitely not worth 15p. A 5" blast with barrage? Sounds awesome! S4 AP5 ignores cover? Flamer profile, okay still good! 18"? ....what?! Make it 30" and I'd say it might be a good artillery platform for 15p considering Crisis can do their JSJ shenanigans.

Overall the most important thing got already said. Don't look at your Crisis and think about a good loadout for them. Look at your list and think what you are lacking and fill that void with Crisis.

The Airburst Fragmentation Projector is hugely situational but good for its designed role of dancing your suits just outside death range of a mob while whittling that mob down to size with large blasts. Whether it is staying out of charge range of orks or rapid-fire range of guard blobs that range is usually just enough to keep you suits alive while dishing the damage.

I used them once in a "horde vs horde" match where i took 100+ kroot and my opponent took 200+ guard and zombies. 3 suits with 2 AFP each were insanely devastating in that game.

It is over-specialised for most games and definitely not well suited to tournament play because horde armies (its whole reason for existence) are almost unplayable in time-limited tournament formats.

nic wrote:The Airburst Fragmentation Projector is hugely situational but good for its designed role of dancing your suits just outside death range of a mob while whittling that mob down to size with large blasts. Whether it is staying out of charge range of orks or rapid-fire range of guard blobs that range is usually just enough to keep you suits alive while dishing the damage.

I used them once in a "horde vs horde" match where i took 100+ kroot and my opponent took 200+ guard and zombies. 3 suits with 2 AFP each were insanely devastating in that game.

It is over-specialised for most games and definitely not well suited to tournament play because horde armies (its whole reason for existence) are almost unplayable in time-limited tournament formats.

I'd much rather take CIBs for the very same task at the same range while still being able to threaten other stuff tbh.

I too hated the way my weapons spun on the spot when magnetising the weapons, so I sought a solution to this problem.

Each weapon has a rectangular slot style part that goes into the arm of the crisis suit to hold it in place, and usually people just cut this straight off and drill out a hole for a magnet, but that's where I took a step back and looked for a solution, an alternative, if you will.

Instead of fully cutting off this rectangular slotting part, I only half cut it off, then drilled a hile next to it for my smaller than usual magnets (2mmx1mm, as opposed to the usual 3mmx1mm). Add the magnet in, and what is left of the rectangular slot, which is now a square, will still slot into the arm/jet pack for stabilisation. Viola! No more spin!

What I've been having trouble with is positioning/deploying my plasma suits. I've got broadsides in the backfield for fire support, and a few monats with missile pods. I was thinking of converting some of those monats to plasma suits, but I don't know the best way to run them. As plasma monats? In units? Should they deepstrike in either case? I guess it partially depends on who you're facing, but I played a game against Iron hands the other day and got royally wrecked due to my lack of low AP stuff.

Pogman wrote:What I've been having trouble with is positioning/deploying my plasma suits. I've got broadsides in the backfield for fire support, and a few monats with missile pods. I was thinking of converting some of those monats to plasma suits, but I don't know the best way to run them. As plasma monats? In units? Should they deepstrike in either case? I guess it partially depends on who you're facing, but I played a game against Iron hands the other day and got royally wrecked due to my lack of low AP stuff.

In units. And either put them in your backfield to counter drop pod assaults (ideally with Counterfire Defense System) or deep strike them.Keep in mind that even though their range is 24" you should aim to be within 12" for the rapid fire and to completely wipe that enemy unit. The 24" is more of a "well at least i'm not completely useless after scattering outside of my 12" bubble"

The only Crisis I see viable as Monats are double Fusion Blaster, double Flamer aaaand sometimes double Missile Pod ones.

Right on, i've reconfigured to have a unit of 4 suits all with dual plasmas and counterfire. Seems like it'd be good like you said to deal with things that DS or to DS them and use them as hunter killers.

So I'm considering using a single monat with dual flamers and homing beacon in my retaliation cadre. Since the beacon doesn't need to be on the table at the start of the turn, if I place that model first, as long as I make sure there is enough space around him to preclude a mishap, I should with the 6" bubble from the beacon be able to land the rest of the cadre exactly where I want them. As an alternative to an outflanking stealth team.Thoughts?

deathboon wrote:So I'm considering using a single monat with dual flamers and homing beacon in my retaliation cadre. Since the beacon doesn't need to be on the table at the start of the turn, if I place that model first, as long as I make sure there is enough space around him to preclude a mishap, I should with the 6" bubble from the beacon be able to land the rest of the cadre exactly where I want them. As an alternative to an outflanking stealth team.Thoughts?

That would theoretically work if Crisis could take Homing Beacons (I assume you mean a single Crisis with 'Monat', right?). They can only take Positional Relays (Outflanking units can choose the edge the Crisis is within 6" of instead of rolling for it).